2 weeks Ago By Daniel DePetris
The king is dead — or, rather, he’s somewhere in Moscow enjoying exile with his family. Syria, dominated by Bashar Assad and his family for more than half a century, is now in the early stages of a new beginning after rebels triumphantly rode into Damascus after a 10-day, cross-country offensive. The Syrian army, whose troops were underpaid, demoralized and forcibly recruited, chose to strip off their uniforms instead of putting up a fight.
A victorious Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a former leader of the al-Qaida branch in Syria, stepped into the historic Umayyad Mosque in Damascus like the conquering hero. Thousands of Syrians displaced by the nearly 14-year civil war are traveling back to their country, some having been exiled from their own land for more than a decade. There is a collective sense of relief in these early days that the tyrant and his labyrinth system of underground dungeons are now things of the past.
Yet there is also a sense of confusion and concern, particularly among the country’s minority communities, about how Syria will now be governed. Nobody is crying over the demise of Assad’s mafia state — even Iran, one of Assad’s primary backers, was increasingly irritated at his intransigence . But the fact that the strongest anti-Assad faction is a former Al-Qaida affiliate headed by a man who still has a $10 million FBI bounty on his head doesn’t escape anybody’s notice.
For many, it’s a time to celebrate. Eventually, however, hard reality will rear its ugly head. Internally, cobbling together a united, effective post-Assad government is the goal.
But having a goal and executing it are entirely different things. While the Assad regime is now on the ash heap of history, Syria is still very much a state in turmoil, tugged in different directions by competing foreign powers that have every intention of keeping their influence. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, the former al-Qaida affiliate, is saying all the right things.
The group, which ruled the northwestern province of Idlib for several years, has put out feelers to pretty much everyone (outside of Israel), hoping to improve relations with foreign powers that will no doubt try to meddle in the transition process. Al-Golani clearly sees himself as a revolutionary figure, and despite his protestations that Syria will transform into a country for all Syrians regardless of sect, religion and region, it’s difficult to see him willingly diluting his power to other factions. The Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), the Kurds, the Jordanian-backed rebels in Syria’s south and even the remnants of Assad’s regime all want some of the spoils.
While one hopes for a smooth transition, precedent suggests a messy, drawn-out process that could become violent at times. In fact, it’s already turning violent — the Turkish-backed SNA and the U.S.
-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are fighting over Manbij, a northern Syrian city near the Turkish border. While the international community insists that Syria’s future is for the Syrians to decide, external stakeholders will do what they can in the weeks and months to come to preserve their own interests. States are selfish creatures.
Despite backing Assad militarily for more than a decade and offering the despot political exile, Russia wasted no time opening communication links to HTS, both to protect its air and naval bases along Syria’s Mediterranean coast and to ingratiating itself to Syria’s new rulers. Iran, which had a strategic relationship with Assad as well as his father, Hafez, will attempt to put distance between itself and a reviled regime. How successful this will be is up for debate.
In an interview the day after Assad scampered to Moscow, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran repeatedly pressed Assad to negotiate with the Syrian opposition but that advice was dismissed. Tehran, too, has had contact with HTS to safeguard Shia shrines in Syria as well as Iranian diplomatic property. With one of their primary clients lost, it’s quite obvious the Iranians are scrambling to make the best of a bad situation; if this means groveling to the new powers that be, then that’s a humiliation they are willing to take on.
Israel, meanwhile, is watching events in Syria with a mix of relief and worry — relief that Assad, who turned Syria into an Iranian outpost, is gone and worry that jihadists could now rule the roost. The Israeli military has expanded deeper into the Israel-Syria buffer zone as a precautionary measure while Israeli aircraft have struck dozens of strategic military targets inside Syria, including a chemical weapons facility, to prevent any of these weapons from getting into the wrong hands. Assad, the devil Israel knew, is now gone; the new devil is fear of the unknown.
As far as the United States is concerned, it would be wise for President Joe Biden’s administration to restrain itself from getting too involved in Syria’s internal politics. In a speech over the weekend, Biden insisted that Washington would contribute to the development of a stable, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political order. The U.
S., which retains nearly 1,000 troops in northeastern Syria, will also continue hammering the remnants of the Islamic State militant group. On Sunday, U.
S. attack planes struck dozens of Islamic State targets in the desert. If U.
S. policymakers were smart, they would let the transition play out without putting their fingerprints on it. Historically, Washington’s record of cementing positive change in the Middle East has been abysmal.
After five decades under the Assad family’s thumb, Syria is now working with a clean slate. The only question is what the final painting is going to look like. Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
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